


Of those walking in the shadows

by indiantea



Series: The Dark Stones of London [3]
Category: Penny Dreadful (TV), The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gothic, M/M, Mentions of bestiality, Obsessive Behavior, PWP without Porn, Sex Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3601263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiantea/pseuds/indiantea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are a strange assembly, each pursuing one's own ends. But it does not mean they can't enjoy the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of those walking in the shadows

This world and this place he lives now have awakened his bodily desires, he cannot deny that. 

The very atmosphere in this house is heavy with repressed longing. The way Victor traces over a rare book with his fingers and the way Sembene looks at Victor when bringing tea to the library is alone sufficient to distract him from the most rewarding of texts. Sometimes, when he is not in the best of moods, he wants to tell Sembene to take this little creator of orcs into his room upstairs and strip him of his virginity immediately just to stop that blind game they’ve been playing for months. Victor has spent his youth in pursuit of occupations that he believed would make him master of this universe; instead he created monsters, like a Necromancer, turned many a life into hell and is left with his own body demanding to be taken and released. 

Sometimes he thinks of taking lodgings of his own. Three gems he had in the pocket of his robes have provided him with a steady and carefree income in this world, he can afford that. But it would mean deserting Vanessa, and they cling to each other. 

Victor loosens his tie as Sembene lifts the tray from the table. Their glances miss to meet again.

Thranduil feels strange comradeship with Sembene sometimes. He knows that Sembene was brought here from faraway lands, and by some slipped words concludes that it was not a travel made with his full consent. The scars on his cheeks remind Thranduil of his own, though Sembene’s were inflicted at different occasion and with purpose. 

He almost wishes Sembene luck. He does not care about sullen doctor, but Sembene desires him, obviously. Perhaps, that would stop Victor’s restlessness and turn him into more useful member of their weird society.

He is engrossed in the other book describing this country’s estates, when light floral scent catches his senses. He lifts his head.

Victor is gone, his large anatomy atlas abandoned opened. Floral scent turns into something heavy and even suffocating, reminding of poisonous flowers or exotic oil.

“Sembene must be working his magic,” says Ethan from the door. 

He seems a bit drunk, a bottle of whisky in his hand.

“No, but thank you,” answers Thranduil as Ethan takes a chair next to him and makes a gulp from the bottle, disregarding all manners. “I gather you don’t object?”

“For me, Sembene may fuck this little prick to death and I won’t give a wink.” 

“And I thought you considered him attractive.”

“Sometimes I have stupid notions.” 

He is still not yet over Brona and what Victor tried to do to her. And what more importantly, how to think of it: an attempt to use her for his monster-creating ends or try to bring her back from the dead. 

He still mourns, Thranduil thinks.

“He is genius, but he is sick.” 

Ethan has tears in his eyes. 

“As often happens to geniuses, it seems,” he continues. “So let him be fucked. Sembene won’t hurt him… at least, not to real damage.”

“And you don’t object to magic being used?”

Ethan’s smile is lopsided.

“Aren’t we all dealing with magic here? Forces of nature, faith, demons, whatever? We are all strange creatures here.”

Thranduil thinks of Sembene’s intricate scars, how they must repeat themselves on his body again and again, how muscles ripple underneath that skin, how powerful he must look naked compared to that little mouse of Victor. 

He does not desire Sembene himself. Not right now, to be safe in his statements, but he can admire his strength and looks. 

But sometimes he also aches for a shared release. And who knows to whom his body might turn to.

“Vanessa told me you were with her when you’ve found me.”

Ethan salutes him with the bottle.

“Not my best performance as a werewolf. I asked her not to tell you.”

A note of tangerine prevails in the scent right now. 

“She was under the influence of her vision.”

“Fair enough.”

Thranduil turns to him and closes the book.

“So you’ve been to that house.”

Ethan shudders. 

“I am not going to talk about it.”

“Lie. You want to talk about it, but it is not easy topic for you to discuss, if I am not mistaken.”

“Your fucking manners never leave you, aren’t they?”

“No,” Thranduil answers without thinking. “I’ve been taught never to forget I was a king.”

Ethan blinks, but takes that silently. They did not discuss his station in his world among them, and only Vanessa and Sir Malcolm know, but all others assumed he was not a low-born. So be it, Ethan is loyal to Vanessa.

Tangerine invades his nostrils, it’s becoming harder to concentrate. Does Sembene perform a magic ritual on Victor to relieve him of his ignorance in carnal matters? Does he use that ever-penetrating oil?

He shakes off these thoughts. Not now.

“Why is it you decline to discuss it?”

“Because it is my greatest nightmare, what I felt there!” spats Ethan. “That is what I’ve been taught!”

He is talking furiously now, like trying to get rid of his words.

“You know that I can kill when I am werewolf. There are no restraints for that, it depends on our mood, hunger, how well we can keep ourselves in beast’s mind, lots of things! We are not taught to curb that!”

“What you are taught then?”

“We live in packs. Not all lives, but teens are made to spend several years in packs to be trained – how to hunt, how to hide, how to turn quickly. Killing is natural, it’s all about you as human… no one can keep from that, all slip some time or another. Some are sorry, some are not… don’t try to preach me on that.”

“It was never my intention.”

There is a note of freshly cut grass coming through that heinous oil.

“Of course… but one thing we are taught to be mortal sin, and this is to couple in our wolf form. With each other or with other people, it does not matter. This is what we can abstain even in the deepest of rage. That is what I can abstain, I’d better cut my cock off.

“You can’t turn back into human when you are coupling, and knotting makes it a torture. There are stories of monsters born in old times after such couplings. May be rumors, but no one is eager to check personally. 

“I’ve seen one woman murdered like this. I don’t want to see it any more, fucking thanks.”

He takes a big gulp.

Thranduil frowns in disgust.

“But you say you are all taught to abstain.”

“Wild werewolf appears now and then. If there is no one close when he or she starts to turn, then werewolf may not end up in a pack. We kill those if we track them. Or a someone going insane. We are not the most welcome and easy-living folk, aren’t we?”

“So you say you’ve been to that house and saw there the… act?”

Ethan shakes his head violently.

“If I were, I would not be here. No.”

“What then?”

He is calmer now, perhaps past his boiling point.

“Memories. Nightmares of those, full house once packed with mad werewolves. And not only wolves, I’ve seen one half-bear…”

“Where they were coming from, these nightmares? You believe they were memories of real events, not just your overindulged imagination?”

Ethan laughs at his choice of words.

“We are… sensitive to some things. And being close to Vanessa only increased that.”

“I know that sometimes you have mental connection with her”, says Thranduil carefully.

Ethan nods.

“You don’t have that, I know. The better for her.”

“So you don’t…”

“No, you keep her sane better than I, at least right now, and I don’t hold a grudge against you at that.”

“Yes”, echoes Thranduil, “you’ll have plenty of time to keep that vigil some day.”

He is glad this issue is cleared between them. Scent of grass turns into something bitter. 

Thranduil wonders if Victor feels pain. Sembene will not be satisfied with a mere tender embrace, he would want Victor fully his, moaning and begging. He would want break his limits.

“They were real memories.”

“And that is why you were in that field?”

“Yes. Vanessa had her suspicions about the house, and I went with her.” 

“Any connection to her?”

“Mina spent summers there with her distant cousin. Vanessa thought she may have used it with other vampires.”

“And those memories, how old were they?”

“Fresh as grass. Like… they left the minute before I came in.” 

“You believe that were true or someone left those memories to linger there?”

That takes Ethan by surprise, and for several minutes he is silent. Thranduil can see how he sobers and straightens, musing over this. 

“I cannot say for sure now,” he says. “After Vanessa had found you, she’s forgotten about that damn house, and I was not going to remind her.”

“So you are too in this not as much about vampires as about her.”

Ethan does not lower himself to deny that.

“Fuck’em. You never get to fight all the evil in this world.”

Especially if you are not the glorious embodiment of good yourself, Thranduil wants to add. 

The thought is not entirely his in making. Bitter grass dissolves into verbena. He hates verbena. 

The salve he used to rub into Vanessa’s wounds smelt it. 

He still remembers how her body looked after those two lascars she met one night. 

“Whoever you want to shoot, leave one shot for me to do.”

“They are long dead,” answers Thranduil, baring his teeth. “And they were not graced with such easy escape from this mortal realm as you suggested.”

Ethan does not reply to that, he knows when to hold his tongue.

Verbena explodes into sweet lemon, and he breathes out. He wants to close his eyes and cling to this rare smell, to keep it in his senses for longer, but now he has no such luxury.

And Ethan is never to be his choice to satisfy his fleshly desires.

But he also senses the change of smell.

“Guess our Victor is defeated now?” he asks with an evil grin.

And Thranduil cannot help but return it.

*** 

Victor has his tie done around his neck very carefully this evening. This does not prevent all bites from being seen, but Thranduil decides that Victor’s relaxed posture and dream-hooded eyes would be a good sign anyway. 

He smirks to Sembene and gets a small smile in reply. The man goes around unruffled and calm as always.

Vanessa understands, too, as she shoots an approving look at Victor. 

Thranduil squeezes her hand in silent gratitude.

He needs to go back to that house.


End file.
